A funny thing happened in the five-way race to determine who will represent north DeKalb on the county commission: An unknown 86-year-old retiree, who had never before sought public office, received the most votes.
So how did Holmes Pyles, who didn’t raise a penny for his campaign, end up as the top vote-getter in the race to replace former DeKalb Commissioner Elaine Boyer, who pleaded guilty to bilking taxpayers out of some $93,000?
Perhaps Pyles benefited from being the only independent candidate as Republican voters split their support among his four Republican opponents, said several political observers. Or maybe voters wanted to elect someone they weren’t familiar with who could bring a unique perspective.
Pyles, who doesn’t use email and didn’t put up yard signs, leans toward the latter explanation for why he won 26 percent of the vote.
“People are tired of what’s been going on in DeKalb,” Pyles said during an interview Wednesday at his home near Stone Mountain. “Politicians are using taxpayers’ money for manipulation.”
Pyles will face the runner-up in the race, former DeKalb Board of Education member Nancy Jester, in a Dec. 2 runoff to represent more than 140,000 residents in Brookhaven, Chamblee, Doraville, Dunwoody and Tucker.
Pyles, a chemist who once worked in the Georgia crime lab, said he wants to restore DeKalb to its glory years.
He complains about overzealous county zoning regulations, and he wants to eliminate red tape that small businesses face.
But voters were probably unfamiliar with his platform, said Steve Anthony, a political science instructor at Georgia State University.
“He has never run before, but he had ‘independent’ next to his name,” Anthony said. “He’s probably waking up this morning and thinking, ‘Hey, politics ain’t that hard.’”
Surprisingly, few voters skipped over the DeKalb Commission race. There were 35,408 ballots cast in that race compared to 41,805 for the U.S. Senate race in the same precincts, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s analysis of preliminary election turnout figures.
Jester, who also sought the Republican nomination for state schools superintendent earlier this year, said she likes her chances in the runoff. She was one of six DeKalb school board members removed by Gov. Nathan Deal in February 2013 after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put the school district on probation.
“We just have such dysfunction in DeKalb government right now, and for the citizens of District 1, there’s a complete loss of trust,” Jester said. “That has to be repaired.”
If elected, Jester said she would implement an online system in which residents could monitor DeKalb Commission spending.
State Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick, D-Lithonia, said voters may have leaned toward Pyles because they didn’t like the other candidates.
“You know who you don’t want to vote for,” Kendrick said. “There were a lot of surprises. Elections are one of those things where, no matter how many polls or surveys you take, you never really know until the day of the election.”
Pyles, who uses a cane, said he’s old enough that his real birthday is in question because of inconsistencies in government records.
When Pyles sought a passport, Georgia documents showed he was born on Feb. 24, 1928, but he had always thought he was born a day earlier.
Pyles joked that if voters put him in office, he won’t stay there for long because of his age.
“For these people who want term limits, I’m a sure thing,” he said.
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